Gone, Gone, Gone

Three years ago today, I went to a wedding. I went with an open mind and an open heart, but also having made a list. On the list, I'd carefully defined what was important to me in my next man. I had the sense that it would be better if I didn't choose the guy myself, but I wanted the Universe to have some data about the man it was to provide.

I asked the groom for a nominee (the Universe needs helpers after all), and he pointed to the man with whom I've since spent the better part of these last three years.

The night we met, he wasn't a happy guy. He was recently divorced, and having been there myself, I did my best to talk him through all the tough emotions that go with the D-word:

When life leaves you high and dry
I'll be at your door tonight
If you need help, if you need help.
I'll shut down the city lights,
I'll lie, cheat, I'll beg and bribe
To make you well, to make you well.

When enemies are at your door
I'll carry you away from war
If you need help, if you need help.
Your hope dangling by a string
I'll share in your suffering
To make you well, to make you well.

I wanted to help make him well, as the song selected to mark this day goes, and soon, over email and then phone calls, he would:

Give me reasons to believe
That you (he) would do the same for me.

Though we were crazy about each other even before the first weekend we spent together, when I flew out to New England, it seemed even crazier to think that maybe it would work out between us, so we tried to break up.

It didn't take:

And I would do it for you, for you.
Baby, I'm not moving on
I love you long after you're gone.
For you, for you.
You would never sleep alone.
I love you long after you're gone
And long after you're gone, gone, gone.

So we dated long distance for about a year, and then, having recently finished a career-changing degree, he embarked on a cross-country move to be by my side:

When you fall like a statue
I'm gon' be there to catch you
Put you on your feet, you on your feet.
And if your well is empty
Not a thing will prevent me.
Tell me what you need, what do you need?

A big, bold move for sure. And though it was hard, at times, for both of us to stay open in the face of challenges, much of which included demons from both of our life histories, my love for him always brought me back to this point:

I surrender honestly.
You've always done the same for me.

Yep. He always did, until one day, he didn't. He started talking about moving back East. I tried to convince him that wasn't really what he wanted or needed, and then surrendered to it, at first believing that I could stay with him even if he felt he needed to leave:

So I would do it for you, for you.
Baby, I'm not moving on,
I love you long after you're gone.
For you, for you.
You would never sleep alone.
I love you long after you're gone
And long after you're gone, gone, gone.

But then he went on a trip out there this Spring, and I realized that although I would most definitely love him long after he'd gone, I needed my person to be physically present. And I began to let myself wonder if maybe, against my heart's protests, my person would end up being someone else:

You're my back bone.
You're my cornerstone.
You're my crutch when my legs stop moving.
You're my head start.
You're my rugged heart.
You're the pulse that I've always needed.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum, baby, don't stop beating.
Like a drum my heart never stops beating...

And then he really did leave (my heart and our mutual friend had to see it to believe it):

And long after you're gone, gone, gone.
I love you long after you're gone, gone, gone.

That I do, and I always will. But I don't want to sleep alone for too long, so I'm gonna have to deviate a little from the Phillip Phillips lyrics and end my version of the song like this:

Baby I'm gonna have to move on

Not too long after you're gone, gone, gone.

Oh, and Universe? About my list. I don't think there's much that I would change about the list from the last time we gave this a whirl. What I think needs to change, whether it is my last lover coming back or someone new, is me making sure that all those that are vital to my health and well-being are met before I close the deal.

It's going to be interesting to see if my heart is willing to play along with that strategy. It won't be easy for it, that's for sure, when you consider that it closed the deal with the last guy (and in many ways I'd say the only guy it ever truly closed the deal with) before I could say: "But wait he just got divorced and we live in two regions of the country and he wants to be near the mountains and I want to be with my kids and I can't move away from Madison because of my custody agreement so how's that going to work?"

Yeah. Hmmmm. Maybe it isn't.

This whole experience has just really left me feeling like I have a lot left to learn. And I think I'm ok with that. Learning is good. Learning = growth, and growth makes me a better mother, a better human being, a better yoga teacher, a better friend, a better writer, a better sister, a better daughter, and maybe, just maybe, a better lover...

Metal Firecracker

I talked to a friend the other night whom I hadn't talked to in a long time. We went to grad school together, and though we're different in a lot of ways, we also have some important things in common. We both grew up with fathers who were alcoholics, both of us finally sought treatment for that when we were in our 30s, and neither of us have been particularly successful in our love lives.

I told her about what's going on in my life, and she told me about a book called The Art of Loving. I started it last night. It's a super old book, but an interesting one, based on the premise that we don't tend to give enough credence to love as an art form. That it contains a theory and a practice. That we can understand the theory and get better at it in practice, and in doing so, overcome our feelings of separateness.

What I find confusing and confounding is, I feel like I've done all that. I feel like I deeply understand the theory of love and practice it with proficiency. So what am I to take away from this situation? What can I do that is in alignment with the art of loving but also allows me to take care of myself and leave myself open to the love I want and need?

I don't know. I'm going back to therapy next week, and I'm hoping that helps.

Until then, my therapy is Lucinda Williams:

Once we rode together
In a metal firecracker
You told me I was your queen
You told me I was your biker
You told me I was your everything

Once I was in your blood
And you were obsessed with me
You wanted to paint my picture
You wanted to undress me
You wanted to see me in your future

All I ask
Don't tell anybody the secrets
Don't tell anybody the secrets
I told you
All I ask
Don't tell anybody the secrets
Don't tell anybody the secrets
I told you

Once you held me so tight
I thought I'd lose my mind
You said I rocked your world
You said it was for all time
You said that I would always be your girl

We'd put on ZZ Top
And turn em up real loud
I used to think you were strong
I used to think you were proud
I used to think nothing could go wrong

All I ask
Don't tell anybody the secrets
Don't tell anybody the secrets
I told you
All I ask
Don't tell anybody the secrets
I told you

I don't know what Erich Fromm would say about Lucinda's lyrics, but I do know that although many of them fit, some really don't, including a few that seem important:

1) He never said I'd always be his girl
2) I don't have any secrets
3) I still think he's strong
4) I never thought nothing could go wrong

You've Got Time

When my internet was down last week, I missed it for two reasons:

1) I missed writing this blog, which is more important to me when I'm dealing with something hard than when everything's going smoothly. I guess all, or at least most, art is like that. It's as if being raw fuels it in a way that being happy just doesn't.

2) I was 12 episodes into Orange is the New Black, the new Netflix original series, and I really wanted to watch the last one. Luckily, my smartphone will do in a pinch for watching Netflix, so I got to see the hot lesbian scenes, only smaller. Phew.

Since I've been watching the show, the theme song has been running through my head on and off:

The animals, the animals
Trapped, trapped, trapped 'till the cage is full
The cage is full
Stay awake
In the dark, count mistakes
The light was off but now it's on
Searching the ground for a bitter song
The sun is out, the day is new
And everyone is waiting, waiting on you
And you've got time
And you've got time

Think of all the roads
Think of all their crossings
Taking steps is easy
Standing still is hard
Remember all their faces
Remember all their voices
Everything is different
The second time around

The lyrics that stay with me, playing on repeat over and over again, are these:

Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard

And they make me think of my recently departed lover. I do think he finds taking steps easier than standing still. I suppose a lot of us do, maybe even all of us, just to different degrees. I'm continuing to get lots of exercise, and I chopped my hair off -- both of which are at least somewhat related to the desire to take steps when standing still feels particularly hard. Have I mentioned it's feeling hard?

Last week I went to a yin yoga class -- a first for me -- which was also all about standing still and working through your shit. Releasing it. Holding poses for at least three minutes, and up to ten minutes. We were in one pose, and I was really hating it even though it is one I practice all the time with much shorter holds, and she said "When you get to the point where you can't stand it anymore -- that's when the pose starts." Hmmm.

I reckon I'll go back to that class this week. It feels like what I need. Maybe to balance out all the running, maybe to release my lover from my hips, my bones, my nether region, even if, or maybe especially because, that's the last thing I want to do:

Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard.

Yep. And when I got home today, I felt so crappy that I had to fight the urge to just crawl into bed at 6pm. Acutally, I didn't fight the urge to crawl into bed, I did, and I read a bunch of my book, and then I fought the urge to stay there. 

Instead, I got up, I fired up a yin yoga class on youtube, and I forced myself to practice. And I had some intense releases.

Alas, I still feel like I'm going through the motions tonight. I made dinner, a really tasty, summer pasta dinner with fresh veggies, and I started watching a new series, this one on youtube, called Susanna. TV is my friend in these dark times. I try as hard as I can to deal with this loss consciously, but at a certain point, I really need an escape...

Radioactive

The weather turned cool this weekend, which is a nice break from the heat. As a result, I didn't feel compelled to get up and run early today -- in fact, my kids and I didn't get up until 9:30 -- love those weekend sleep-ins! Even better, my kids agreed to accompany me on their bikes as I ran to Picnic Point and back.

A number of times, they rode ahead, and the song I kept hearing inside my head was this one:

Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age

It does feel like a new age, in a good way. The kids and I are settling into our party of three life, and they seem to be much more game than they were to do things all together (like our run/bike today).

Don't get me wrong, we still have our issues:

Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive

I raise my flags, don my clothes
It's a revolution, I suppose
We're painted red to fit right in
Whoa

But we seem to get through them relatively quickly and peaceably.

And my body, which bruised like crazy after my last chiropractor visit, was pretty cooperative on my run, maybe in part because I agreed to walk the part of the route that goes out to picnic point and back with my kids (since you can no longer ride your bike on that path):

I'm breaking in, shaping up...
I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my systems blow
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive

All systems go, the sun hasn't died
Deep in my bones, straight from inside

Nope, the sun hasn't died. And although every single day, I have at least one moment where it feels like maybe it has, it passes again, generally after I've shed a few tears. Sigh.

But I also read a little more of my book today, and at one point Sugar gave someone the following advice: "A glorious something else awaits."

And I choose to believe her...

Don't Let It Bring You Down

The kids explore Peninsula State Park just after sunset

I've been offline for a few days -- first because our bunny chewed through our internet wires -- then because the kids and I took off to go camping in Door County.

What a beautiful spot! And everything mostly went well -- our drive went smoothly and wasn't too, too long -- we managed to set up our campsite even without the help of the man who inspired us to become campers...

But there were also challenges. The first morning, my daughter was pretty quiet and didn't want much to do with her brother, which is always tough for him. He and I were talking about it, and I told him not to let it bring him down, which fired up this number inside my head:

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

Which got me thinking just how apropos that song was for me, and for us: The hole left by the missed person on our camping trip was enormous. We all felt it, and we talked about it, and dealt with it in different ways throughout our time away. I started by texting frequent updates, but when a couple went unreturned, I decided that wasn't the way to go. We made a video for him. We ate bacon and egg sandwiches in his honor (soooo yummy!) cooked on the Coleman stove he gave us...

And tried not to let it bring us down. But, its magnitude on the scale of castles burning, at least for yours truly, that's easier said than done.

Lucky for us, there were lots of fun things to do there. We hiked on the beautiful Eagle Trail, rented stand-up paddleboards at Nicolet Bay Beach (and just about got blown to a point beyond where we were supposed to be and from which it was nearly impossible to get back), rode our bikes, did an exercise course, had a campfire, read books in the tent, had good long sleeps all snuggled up together, and enjoyed mostly beautiful weather.

Until our last day, when it rained. And rained. And rained. But we enjoyed that too. Mostly.

I went for a run in the rain in the morning, which felt absolutely amazing. I felt something shift for me during that run: I'm gonna stop working so hard, even just inside my own head, on a way to get him back.

When I got back to the campsite, the kids were hungry and it seemed the rain was taking a break so I started cooking our breakfast -- only to have it start raining again midway through the cooking process. And yeah, because it was our last day, we also had to pack things up wet, which was pretty gross. But we got it done, and my daughter was a big help.

On our way out of the park, we decided to hit the Nature Center, which we had seen but hadn't been to yet, and then after that, I asked if they were ready to head home. My son said he'd really like to do one more hike, this time on The Lone Pine Trail. He assured us it was short, and although my daughter protested because of the rain, she went along with it. (After my magical run, I was pretty psyched about returning to the beautiful, sodden, empty forest.)

So off we went. And in the space of that hike, we hit highs and lows that I assured the kids are bound to come with every adventure and indeed, pretty much every day of our lives here at Earth school in one form or another. We went from bounding happily through the forest to getting lost and stressed and cold and soaking wet, wondering how and when we'd ever make it back to our car. But we made it:

Don't let it bring you down
It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning
And you will come around.

We came around.

Note to Neil, who is ever so cute in the video linked above, filmed in the year I was born: methinks sometimes the someone I need to find turning is me, yes?

Babe

This past weekend, I talked to my favorite New Englander for the first time since he left. It's difficult, I think for both of us and I know for me, to figure out how to navigate what we're going through right now. In the past I've always tried to control things that didn't seem to be working out, regardless of how I felt. I made rules for myself and rules for us.

Time after time, in this relationship, my heart has told me in no uncertain terms that my rules are irrelevant. I don't know if it's that once you let this kind of love in, it never leaves, or how to explain it, but I know that despite his decision to move across the country, I haven't stopped wanting to be with him:

Babe I'm leavin'
I must be on my way
The time is drawing near
My train is going
I see it in your eyes
The love, the need, your tears
But I'll be lonely without you
And I'll need your love to see me through
So please believe me
My heart is in your hands
And I'll be missing you

As I was biking all over Madison yesterday, this was the song I heard in my head, the song I sang as I pedaled, and it's the song I woke up to this morning, all inspired by him calling me babe in our phone conversation on Sunday. It felt sooooo good, it was such a relief, to hear that word come out of his mouth, directed at me:

'Cause you know it's you babe
Whenever I get weary
And I've had enough
Feel like giving up
You know it's you babe
Givin' me the courage
And the strength I need
Please believe that it's true
Babe, I love you

I love being his babe. That much is crystal clear. My confusion is that another part of me feels really strongly, and this is a real part of me, not fear talking, that I need a man who is physically present and therefore capable of making me feel loved in my love languages (thanks to Gary Chapman for this id): quality time and physical touch. This hasn't changed, which is why I don't feel like I can remain committed to someone who can't deliver the love I want and need and deserve (and he doesn't expect me to):

Babe, I'm leavin'
I'll say it once again
And somehow try to smile
I know the feeling we're tryin' to forget
If only for a while
'Cause I'll be lonely without you
And I'll need your love to see me through
Please believe me
My heart is in your hands
'Cause I'll be missing you

But it's ok. I can live with being a little confused for a while about how all this is going to play out. One thing's for sure: I'm not going to deal with it by making more arbitrary rules. His departure has softened me. It's taken away an element of my need to control. These things are good. It's also testing my faith that I'm going to have everything I want, I just don't get to control when or how or who. That last one's especially tricky. Because when you love someone like I love him, the last thing you feel or want to be is neutral on the who. The who for me seems very, very clear:

Babe, I love you
Babe, I love you
Ooo-oo-oo-oo, babe

Someday

My swing back toward thinking a lot about my lover recently removed (which basically happened right after I got over the anger) is being tempered by a message from the Universe, one of those that if you ignore the first one, you get it again in a slightly different form, and that message goes something like this:

"Honey you know you need someone this next time around whom you love, love, love like your last dude, but he also needs to be someone who is ready to say "we'll figure it out together."

Might sound crazy, but if I had to identify the biggest problem we had as a couple, it was that those words came out of my mouth, but they never came out of his. He didn't see it that way, the way I really wanted to see it, that we were joining our lives and his problems and my problems and whatever life had already handed us to deal with and everything it will be handing us in the future -- that all of that was now ours. I knew that was missing. I tried to see if I could get him on board with it, but, I don't know, really, I guess he just didn't want to do that, or didn't feel he had it in him for some reason:

You can go
You can start all over again
You can try to find a way to make another day go by
You can hide
Hold all your feelings inside
You can try to carry on when all you want to do is cry

Yeah, Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty fame seems to know a little something about this:

And maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to make things better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

As much as it breaks my heart to entertain the possibility that it won't be his arms wrapped around me, his weight on top of me, his voice saying my name(s), and it really, truly does break my heart, I know I'll be better off with someone who'll want to be a we with me to figure all this out:

And I don't want to wait
I just want to know
I just want to hear you tell me so
Give it to me straight
Tell it to me slow

Cause maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

What I don't know is when, or whether, I'll ever stop hoping he will be a we with me, because when I read the lyrics of the last verse:

Cause sometimes we don't really notice
Just how good it can get
So maybe we should start all over
Start all over again

That was all I could think about.

Luckily though, it isn't bringing me down like it was. I mostly had a day today where I appreciated the freedom that I have and the many wonderful parts of my life. Like the fact that my ride to work takes me along the lakeshore, or the fact that I had enough extra time on my way to sub a yoga class that I got to stop off on my bike for a dilly bar at DQ. Or the fact that when no one showed up for the class I was supposed to sub, including the studio manager, I decided to ride over to the gym and go for a swim instead - never mind that I didn't have my bathing suit. I just dove in wearing my clothes. It felt awesome, and the bikeride home wasn't nearly as hot soaking wet!

I Want to Know What Love Is

I'm still working my way through The Art of Presence on audio in the car, and today someone asked Eckhardt a question about love. (The link above has at least a portion of the book that you can listen to online. Fair warning: he's a weird looking dude and his laugh is even weirder, but for me at least, he's a powerful teacher.)

Anyway, I was heartened by his answer. It's the same one that I give, and that prompted me to start teaching a couple's yoga class (even though no one showed up for this past one): spaciousness. Love is meeting another person in the space beyond thought and recognizing and celebrating your oneness. As my most recent love would say: "Awww yeah."

Funny I should mention him, because no sooner had Eckhardt finished his sentence, and I finished that thought, when I found myself smack in the middle of one of those memories that can't help but be jarring in this stage of the healing process.

The very first weekend we spent together, when I flew out to New England, we had just returned from a road trip to Vermont, and had just finished our Stowe-farmer's-market dinner, when he said to me:

"I know this phrase gets overused, but I love you, and I have to say it because if this isn't love, I don't know what is."

I'm here (a little crumpled, but I'm here) to tell you that he does know what love is, that the quality of presence we brought to each other from the first night we met was the basis of our love, and, according to Eckhardt, is the basis of all love in the true sense of the word.

And as Foreigner fired this number up inside my head, I turned off Eckhardt's voice and sang along through my tears:

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

Now this mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
I through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I'm gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I've got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me

Yep. He showed me alright.

Love finally found me alright.

And then he drove away.

Which leaves me with a kidless Sunday that doesn't at all resemble kidless Sundays with him. Sigh.

But it's still before noon, and I've run 9 miles, been to a yoga class, and mowed the lawn. Not bad, eh? Oh, and at the yoga class, which was decidedly not Ashtanga, I realized reason #4 that I'm into Ashtanga these days (this is a carryover from yesterday):

4) It's the same series of poses every time. It's predictable. Which is comforting, because where my (love)life goes next is not.

And on a lighter note, I did not realize Mariah covered this song, and it's a pretty beautiful rendition. You can check it out right here.

Hurt So Good

This morning I got up and went to an 80-minute led ashtanga yoga practice. This means that there's a teacher, but he's not really there to teach you how to do the practice (it's assumed that you know), he's just there to talk you through the poses. I've been going to Ashtanga more lately and I think I do have a pretty good grasp now on the Primary Series, but this was my first experience in this type of class. There were three other women there, all of whom are more advanced than I am. (If you want to see some of the crazy stuff Ashtangis can do, check out this video.)

I've been asking myself why I'm drawn to Ashtanga again at this point in my life (it was my first yoga love). It's a really vigorous practice, requiring at least as much strength as flexibility, and that may be two of the reasons right there:

1) Constitutionally, as evidenced by my fiery red hair, I'm mostly fire (or pitta), and thus I'm drawn to the more fiery kinds of yoga practice.

2) I'm more about strength than flexibility, both in terms of what I have access to in my body and in my general temperament.

I'm raising a daughter with that same mix of qualities, and this, among other things, is prompting me to try to work more on my flexibility. Which leads me to a third reason I think I'm drawn to this practice right now:

3) A lot of the poses in the primary series are about opening the hips, and I've known for a long time that I've got a bunch of old energy stuck there. As I work my way through this practice, though there are many poses I can't do because of those tight hips, I am aware that I'm asking my hips to release, over and over again, not like a nagging kind of asking over and over again, but like a gentle source of encouragement: "It's ok. That's it. Let it go. Open up. Release. Ahhhhh."

I'm not actually to the "Ahhh" part yet -- just ask my sports chiro. I specifically went to see him after going to yoga, hoping I'd be more open and more able to release, and I think I was, a little, but he still said: "Man, you're holding on tight there."

Just what it is I won't let go, I don't know. I can venture a guess about when it got stuck there, but I don't have any kind of conscious idea about what's stuck or what I'm afraid will happen if I let it go.

My chiro was telling me he has another chiro friend, who he describes as less fact-based, (I'd say more woo-woo) and his friend says it's all about the three Ts: toxins, trauma and thoughts. For yours truly, I'd say it's trauma that reigns supreme, especially where the hips are concerned, but I could probably also be a little more positive with my thoughts.

Like at this morning's yoga class, during a difficult balancing pose on my more stable side (which is my left), I heard myself thinking: "If you think this is bad, wait til we get to the other side!" Let's just say I can think of more supportive thoughts to have in that moment.

About two-thirds of the way through the practice, when I was getting really tired, I had this nagging feeling that maybe some of my low back pain is related to my Ashtanga resurgence. I don't know if it is or isn't, but I do know what song started to play internally -- sort of an odd one as a soundtrack for yoga:

Hurt so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good

Which got me thinking about when I sang this song as a child, and my mother, without my asking or really wanting to know, explained to me what it meant -- a mildly traumatic event in its own right:

Don't have to be so exiting
Just tryin' to give myself
A little bit of fun, yeah
You always look so invitin'
You ain't as green as you are young
Hey baby, its you
Come on, girl, now, its you
Sink your teeth right through my bones, baby
Let's see what we can do
Come on and make it hurt

Hurt so good
Come on baby, make it hurt so good
Sometimes love don't feel like it should
You make it hurt so good

Here's hoping I'm not hurting myself through this practice, but I am shifting things around, and hopefully letting go of what I no longer need...

Colorblind

My coworker was listening to music today at her desk -- some of which I didn't recognize -- but I knew this voice when this song came on:

I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am taffy stuck and tongue tied
Stutter shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am fine

When I was like 20 years old, I loved, loved, loved the Counting Crows, and although I don't seek them out anymore, I do still enjoy their stuff when I come across it. I've always found their lyrics semi-nonsensical, usually in a good way, and this song is no exception.

I'm particularly responding to the "pull me out from inside" line -- it kinda feels like that's what's going to be necessary for me if I'm going to get to the point where feeling good isn't predicated on no one messing with the story I'm telling myself in that moment about why things are the way they are and how they can be fixed.

True surrender is hard for me. I suppose it's hard for everyone, but I know it's hard for me because I've always needed to control things to feel ok. Trouble is, I'm old (wise?) enough now to 1) know that I can't control things, and 2) recognize that I tend to feel best when I'm not trying to control things. But oh, how I want to...

I mentioned the other day that my acupuncturist said my kidneys are really in need of some love, and tonight I was talking to a friend who owns Louise Hay's book about what it means when you have issues with a certain part of your body. When she read me what it said about the kidneys, it talked about disappointment and failure and dealing with those things like a small child. And that really resonated with me.

I am disappointed that my lover moved away. I do feel like as hard as I tried to make it work, and I tried really, really hard, I failed. Never mind that that was never my job. And then when my friend tells me, as she did tonight, that she sees me meeting someone who wants to have a family and wants to live in Madison and it won't have to be so hard, tears roll down my face and I shake my head and say "But I don't wanna meet someone else! I wanna be with him!" That sounds maybe a wee bit childish, eh?

The Counting Crows know how it is:

I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside

Yep. Something or someone's going to have to pull me out from inside. And I guess I'm just going to have to ask for the willingness to let go of what doesn't work to make room for what does, even if that's not what I feel like doing, because:

I am folded and unfolded and unfolding
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am fine

No, I'm not ready, and I'm not fine. But one day I will be. Pull me out from inside. You'll see...

Super life

Now that my pity party is officially over (at least for the moment), it's time for me to post on something other than the affairs of my heart, and at the top of that list is Trayvon Martin. This morning I rode my bike to work and then ran 4 miles on the treadmill before my 9am meeting (I was pretty impressed with myself), and while I ran I watched an interview with Trayvon's family:

A mama's cryin'
'Cause another young man has gone and died
He's not some statistic
He's another awesome destiny denied

I'll say.

And I was struck by their grace, by the way they handled themselves, in the wake of the Zimmerman acquittal. Watching it, and realizing that in comparison, what I'm going through is relatively benign, I vowed to use more of my energy working for a more peaceful, more just world.

Turns out, my old friend Chaka Khan wrote a song to encourage us all to do just that:

So I've got to stand tall
I'm gonna live a super life
For the rest of my life
I'm gonna live a super life
Super life, super life, yeah

We take it all so lightly
How did we get so 'climatized
On the 9 o'clock news nightly
Genocide of babies
I can't believe my eyes

Right or wrong
I'm gonna live a super life
For the rest of my life
I'm gonna live a super life
Super life, super life, yeah

Yeah. I wish my man could live his super life with me, but there's a chance that someday, while I'm still walking this Earth, he might. And even if he doesn't, I get to spend my super life with my babies.

Trayvon's family aren't going to get that wish in this lifetime, and I'm profoundly sorry, both for their loss and for the failure of our justice system to hold someone accountable for his death.

He Stopped Loving Her Today

I can't even tell you where I heard this song, or how it got stuck on repeat in my mind, but the last couple of days on my (very hot) bike commute home, it's been playing internally:

He said I'll love you 'til I die
She told him you'll forget in time
As the years went slowly by
She still preyed upon his mind.

I can't say what I'll be feeling in a few years, but I can say where I am today: relieved to be climbing out of the dark space I've been occupying for the last two weeks. It's true. My lover is no longer physically present, and that sucks. But I think I might be done with my little pity party. That's not to say I didn't deserve to have one -- to be just as blue as I needed to be -- it's just that I have a choice about whether I stay mired in the darkness or choose to bring in the light.

I can't change the fact that he's gone. And ultimately, we both know I'll need a man who's psyched to be by my side. But for today, what I'm experiencing, and happy to be experiencing, is the love I still have for him, as kind of a fuzzy glow. I don't want anyone else. I'm not ready for that. Maybe someday I will be, but I'm not ready for that today.

So just like my pal George, I put my picture of my love back up:

He kept her picture on his wall
Went half crazy now and then
He still loved her through it all
Hoping she'd come back again.

And yeah, I'm hoping he'll come back again. But that's not what's happening today. Today I'm just feeling grateful that I really do know I'm always going to love him and he's always going to love me and there's no distance that can take away that truth. It might not mean that we get to be together, but I do believe we'll go to our graves, wherever they may be, with this love in our hearts.

Granted, it's not the 'til death do us part I was shooting for. Not yet anyway. But it's pretty goddamn beautiful in its own right:

He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today...

Am I Too Blue

As I've written about recently, the rest of my body seems to be taking this break-up almost as hard as my heart. The latest additions to my list of maladies are low back pain, knee pain and headaches. Ugh. Time for as much bodywork as I can fit into my schedule and afford.

Yesterday I went to the chiropractor -- not the one that takes my insurance and therefore costs $6 but only spends about 3 minutes with me -- but the one who spends 45 minutes with me, employs the graston technique among others, and costs $40. He worked on my low back, as well as my psoas, and as he was adjusting me he asked if I was headed back up north anytime soon. I started to tell him about my plan to take the kids camping next week in Door County, and I just started bawling. It was pretty embarrassing, but I guess it was an effective way to communicate that a large part of why my body is such a mess is emotional:

Am I too blue for you?
Am I too blue?
When I cry like the sky
Like the sky sometime
Am I too blue?

I heard this song tonight after I got home from bodywork #2 in 2 days -- today it was acupuncture. I love Lucinda Williams, and the lyrics really spoke what I've been feeling with some people in my life about where I am emotionally.

Case in point: the mail guy at work came over to my desk and asked what was up with me. I told him that I was dealing with my love leaving Wisco and his response was: "I thought you dealt with that six months ago?" And he isn't wrong, I did, when the decision was made, but I still have to deal with it now that it's actually happened, and I think it's hard for some people to be confronted with other people's emotions.

Seeing my acupuncturist - and I hadn't seen her in 7 months -- was super helpful. She traced back a lot of my current physical issues to the dehydration incident after the last half marathon, explaining that my kidneys had been stressed by that and with the hot weather, amount of raw food I've been eating, and amount of exercise, they just haven't gotten enough of a break to get back to normal. She asked how I'd been sleeping, and I explained the problem with that, and she said that also fit with the kidney issue.

And I cried, a lot, catching her up on what has gone on in my life over the last 7 months. I explained to her how very hard it is for me now, not to know what or how he's doing:

Is the night too black?
Is the wind too rough?
Is it at your back?
Have you had enough?

Do you miss my touch?
Do you wanna stay?
Do you have so much
Still left to say?

But I went through a phase, after he left, when I couldn't handle knowing how he was doing. When the thought of hearing his voice threatened to crack me open and break me. And then not hearing his voice did crack me open, but I didn't break.

Who knows where he is in that process? All I can do, as I have done, is tell him I'm in a space now where I've dealt with the anger and the fear and there's space again, on my end, to receive from him when he's ready:

When you're in the dark
Do ya call my name?
Is there still a spark?
Does it feel the same?

The sun beats down
It burns your skin
When you run into, my arms again

In the meantime, I'm not going to stop fantasizing about holding him again, but I am going to continue to try to live my life and be in my body as peacefully as I can. As I was leaving my appointment, my acupuncturist told me I was doing really great. I cried and said: "Really? Is this what great feels like?"

Am I too blue for you?
Am I too blue?
When I cry like the sky
Like the sky sometime
Am I too blue?

And she said I might not feel great, but I had handled the situation beautifully by being clear about my needs and leaving space for him to figure out what he needs. Nope, I don't feel great, but I know that creating space is good, even when it's scary...

To Love Somebody

Woke up with this song in my head this morning, thanks to the soundtrack of 50/50, a movie that was apparently in my Netflix queue because it arrived at my door on Saturday morning:

There's a light
A certain kind of light
That never shone on me
I want my life to be lived with you
Lived with you
There's a way everybody say
To do each and every little thing
But what good does it bring
If I ain't got you, ain't got ?

You don't know what it's like, baby
You don't know what it's like
To love somebody
To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

I don't remember putting it in the queue, but after my kids went back to their Dad's yesterday, I went to yoga and then came home, made some dinner, and fired up the flick. I was exhausted, so sitting on the couch was about all I had in me, and the movie wasn't half bad -- it was about a young person being diagnosed with cancer and being given 50/50 odds of survival -- but it was also funny in the way that any movie with Seth Rogen is funny.

Midway through the film, a friend called that I hadn't talked to in a while, one who knows intimately what I'm going through right now. We talked for about an hour, and I did some more emoting, and then I watched the rest of the movie.

And I missed him. A lot. I missed his body on my couch, I missed being able to see the movie through his eyes as well as my own, and I missed him when the movie ended and I crawled into my bed, where a part of him still seems to lie:

In my brain
I see your face again
I know my frame of mind
You ain't got to be so blind
And I'm blind, so very blind
Cause I'm a man, can't you see
What I am
I live and I breathe for you
But what good does it do
If I ain't got you, ain't got ?

Other than assigning me the wrong gender, those lyrics pretty much speak of where I am right now. And rather than trying to speed through this phase, I'm just going to let myself be in it.

Even with all the pain, I never lose sight of the fact that it was with him that I really, truly learned what it is like to love somebody. I'm so grateful these lyrics don't apply to me:

You don't know what it's like, baby
You don't know what it's like
To love somebody
To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

I went through a phase, when he decided to leave, where I questioned whether he loved me in that way -- maybe he didn't know what it was like, and if he did, he'd be staying? That might be a more convenient explanation, but it doesn't square with my experience of our love. In order to be as powerful as ours, I reckon the love has to be mutual...

It's the End of the World as We Know It

When I saw the forecast for today, I made the decision to go for my long run early. I'm back up to 8 miles, and while that means I won't be able to run the full marathon I was hoping to run on August 31, it looks like I will get to do another half.

Anyway, I set my alarm for 6am, got up, had some tea and an energy bar and headed out the door while my kids were still asleep. My route took me out to Picnic Point and back, and was it ever gorgeous out there this morning!

Since I had my kids this weekend, I didn't arrange any running buddies to accompany me, with the exception of Slacker Alterntive workout, which, while not a person, is actually a pretty damn good running buddy.

During the last mile, I was just starting up a hill when Michael's voice fired up:

That's great, it starts with an earthquake

Birds and snakes, an aeroplane, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid

Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn

World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs

Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt, no, strength

The ladder starts to clatter with a fear of height, down, height

Wire in a fire, represent the seven games

And a government for hire and a combat site

Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck...

Those of us who grew up with REM will agree that this was not their finest hour, but tackling that hill, as well as the end of my world as I know it feeling that I have much of the time in the wake of this break-up, this was exactly what I needed to hear this morning:

It's the end of the world as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Of course, I don't feel fine a lot of the time, but I feel better today than I have in a while, and I'll take it.

Postscript: Looking up this video, I remembered being in the third row of an REM concert as a youngster and being completely hot for Michael Stipe. I guess my last lover wasn't the first bald dude for which I had it bad...

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Today was a rough one out of the gates, and it didn't get any better when I tried to get my kids to bike 6 miles each way to the Farmer's Market. A big part of the problem, which I recognized but could not help, was that I was, once again, dealing with my own anger, and that makes things that would normally be merely frustrating that much harder to handle.

When we got home, and we'd all had some food, I made a decision about how to salvage the day: we'd go to a movie. I looked online, and we were in luck: Despicable Me 2 was playing at my favorite theater. It was a pretty funny movie, and I was relieved to be there, but while it helped ease the frustrations of the morning, it did little to help deal with the general emotional anguish of my current situation.

In the movie, the girl starts to leave and then realizes that she really wants to be with her man, so she flies back to tell him that and they get married. Yep, that's just how it works in my fantasy, too (except it's the guy coming back), but not so much in my reality.

Add to that the feeling that I had when I saw a woman that I am friendly with who has always appeared to me to have the perfect marriage (of course, I know that there is no such thing), but they have four kids and always just seem psyched about being all together. Anyway, she had a newborn with her. Kid #5! In my fantasy life, I only had four kids, but still! It reminded me, just as the movie did, that my life isn't working out quite like I wanted it to work out.

This song wasn't in the movie:

Darling you gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
If you say that you are mine
I'll be here 'til the end of time
So you got to let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

...but it came to me today after I read a bit more of this wonderful book I'm reading: Tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life by Dear Sugar. The part I read today was a series of letters from people who were in relationships with good people that they didn't want to hurt, but a little voice kept telling them: Go. 

I've been there. I've had that little voice in my head, and eventually, I listened to it, because I knew that there was something missing from my marriage that wasn't ever going to be there. Sugar calls it "magic sparkle glue" which, like most of her writing, is an awesome way to put it because man, what a diference it makes when every part of you is saying "Yeah, right here, this is right where you should be. Stay here. With him. On him. In him. Right here. Stay."

And I had that feeling with my lover now departed, and I coulda sworn he had it with me, but magic-sparkle-glued-together, we ain't:

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An' if I stay it will be double

I know those were questions at the center of his thoughts for much of the time that he was here, and I even think The Clash's assessment of the results of staying versus going are very similar to his assessment of staying or going. I don't know if it will actually work out that way for him.

What I know is this: I'm gonna have a relationship where every part of me is saying stay, and the dude I'm in that relationship with is gonna be hearing the same thing, and we're gonna get married and it's gonna be a magic sparkle glue kind of marriage.

I don't know when, and I don't know who, but I do know it'll happen. Just like in the movies, except better, because I'll get to live it...

Fear

Yesterday morning in the car, I was listening to an audio book by one of my favorite teachers, Eckhardt Tolle. The book is called The Art of Presence, and he made a statement that really struck me: "all aggression is linked to fear."

When I feel angry or aggressive as I have over the last few days, it's really uncomfortable. I don't like it at all. As I wrote about earlier this week, I feel much more comfortable with the pure expression of grief.

At the same time, I know that the anger is there for a reason, it just takes me a couple of days (or sometimes weeks, years or decades, depending on the anger we're talking about) to recognize it and let it speak what it is trying to say rather than taking it out on everyone and everything around me. As another of my favorite spiritual teachers, much less famous but no less wise, reminds me: "I let my anger teach me." Yeah, grudgingly, reluctantly, I do.

And when I heard Eckhardt tying it to fear, I began to ask myself what, exactly, I'm afraid of, and through this process I realized a couple of important things.

But first, the fears that I identified:

1) I'm afraid that my love will not be okay without me
2) I'm afraid that my love will be okay without me
3) I'm afraid that I will never stop wanting to be with him, but won't be able to be, at least for a while and maybe never again, leaving me with this horrible feeling of wanting for as long as I live.

That might sound a little dramatic -- especially that last one -- and it looks dramatic to me, seeing it in black and white, but those were the fears I identified.

Now for the realizations:

1) None of these are actually problems in this moment, and that's all I really need to worry about. Granted, that leaves me with what I am feeling in this moment, which is this crushing loss, this undoing of the rhythm of my daily life, and of my kids' daily life.

2) All three of those fears can't possibly come true, and there really isn't one that I couldn't live with, especially since I know the horribleness of this feeling is temporal; it will fade in time.

As I was working on this post earlier today, I searched my blog to be sure I hadn't already used this song, and I stumbled on this post, which contains a really hot picture of my love and me, setting off a crying jag for yours truly. But like the third time I was awoken in the night this week, I decided to do something different than I have been doing with these feelings.

I decided to call a friend in the midst of it, to tell her I didn't want to be alone with this grief anymore, that it was too big for me to face by myself, and I knew she could understand it. She didn't pick up, so I left a tearful message, and amazingly, I felt better just having left the message!

When I talked to her later, she said she was so glad I called, and that she could hear a shift in my voice as I shared the depth of my pain in my message. And I felt even better after we talked. Pretty cool, and I feel pretty lucky to have friends with whom I can share my pain. It doesn't really lessen it, but it sure makes it easier to bear.

As does staying in the now, and trying to feel things when they come up without attaching any story to them. That's hard to do, especially, I think, with fear:

But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
here in this lonely place
tangled up in our embrace
there's nothing I'd like
better than to fall
but I fear I have nothing to give

I love Sarah McLachlan, and this song is so beautiful. But it's interesting that it's the one that came up for me today, because I honestly think it expresses the fears of my love a lot better than it expresses my own.

I wish Wisconsin wasn't such a lonely place for him, a place where he felt he had so much to lose. I wish he felt able to give more of himself, to let me in more, to decide, once and for all, not to do it alone. To trust love. But once again, I can't control these things. And probably the harder I tried, the less likely it was that we would ever find our way to a mutual, totally psyched to be spending our lives together, yes, even in Wisconsin (for a few more years), place.

Which is why I understood he needed to go, and why I have to keep working at letting him go, with as much grace as I can muster, trying not to let fear overwhelm me.

But god, f%#*ing damn it, I miss being tangled up in our embrace...

Because You Loved Me

Phew. Having my kids back totally helped shift that shitty energy. Maybe it was catching fireflies, or holding baby bunnies and guinea pigs at the pet store. Maybe it was their hugs. Maybe it was my son asking if I still text our lost-fourth-at-the-dinner-table, or the fact that when I answered "when I need to arrange something about the stuff he left here" my son gently said: "no Mom, I meant just to sy hi." Maybe it was my daughter's report that her Dad said second marriages usually work out better, or their assurances that once they've grown up, I can fly off to New England and marry the man of whom we are all so fond. I'm not sure it'll work that way, but it was still really sweet.

Before I went to bed last night, I asked whoever might be listening if I could just please sleep through the night, or at least, when I awake to go to the bathroom as I pretty much always do, get right back to sleep. Alas, my wish was not granted. I still woke up at 4am feeling hungry and out of sorts. So I tried responding to it in a different way -- rather than getting up to get a bowl of cereal, I moved over to "his" side of the bed, and "his" pillows, and I cried. In fairly short order after that, I fell back to sleep. Sigh.

A couple of days ago I wrote about my love referring to my love (you following me?) as wings, and today in the car, I heard this song -- I know, I know, Celine Dion is far less cool than Social Distortion, but I gotta admit, this is a pretty beautiful take on what love can mean:

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right
For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful baby...

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by you

I don't like that past tense but I do know that much is true, and I will be forever thankful, and I'm super grateful to my children for getting me back in touch with that knowledge.

And thus, for this last verse, I'm talking to all three o' my loves:

You were always there for me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you

Blue Monday

Man, I feel like shit. I just can't seem to move this energy, and I must not have been ready to, because it occurred to me last night when I was in the bathtub soaking my sore muscles that it would have been smart to make some sort of appointment to have some help in dealing with this loss while my kids were with their Dad. Maybe having them back today will help shift it. I don't know.

Do I look like this girl's Mama?

I must look like shit too. Last night I went to a going away party for a 22 year old friend and former coworker (Pictured at left), and one of her friends asked if I was her Mom. Ouch. My friend said: "No but if she was she'd be the coolest Mom ever!" which was sweet, but made me feel only marginally better.

Before the big departure, I could comfortably call what I was feeling grief. I cried, a lot. Now it's not so straightforward. Maybe because I know there's no one here to comfort me, so I'm afraid to let it rip like I did while he was still here, leaving the anger in control.

I don't know. But it sucks, whatever this is that I am feeling.

Yesterday when I was running to work (I ended up biking part of the way too), for the first time since I've gotten back to running, I decided to listen to music while I ran. I turned Slacker to Alternative Workout, and appropriately, this was one of the songs that came on:

How does it feel
To treat me like you do
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are

I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how do I feel

And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that you'll tell me
Just how I should feel today

And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how should I feel

Now I stand here waiting...

That's probably the problem. That I'm waiting. What am I waiting for, exactly? To stop feeling like shit? Yep. For him to realize he doesn't want to live without me and come back? Yep. To get over him if that's not going to happen? Yep. And none of those things is, unfortunately, anything I can really influence. Maybe the first one, but I'm doing everything I can -- eating right, exercising. And it's not helping.

I get it, Universe. I'm not in control, and I'm gonna have to deal with it. Hope it starts getting easier soon. Hope I stop waking up in the middle of the night hungry and out of sorts. Hope I stop being generally pissed off and bristly (which doesn't feel good from the inside, and I'm sure it doesn't feel good to those experiencing it on the outside, either.) Wait, but I'm supposed to abandon hope, right? And just be with feeling like shit. So I guess that's what I'll try to do...

Ball and Chain

There's something about the music of one's youth that can really be a pick-me-up when it's most needed, and that's how I'm feeling about my boys from Social D on this (too) early morning:

Well it's been ten years and a thousand tears
And look at the mess I'm in
A broken nose and a broken heart,
An empty bottle of gin
Well I sit and I pray
In my broken down Chevrolet
While I'm singin' to myself
There's got to be another way

Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
Well I'm lonely and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain
Take away, take away
Never to return again
Take away, take away
Take away
Take away this ball and chain

It probably isn't nice to refer to my body as my broken down Chevrolet, but that's how it feels. I'm not sleeping well, my lower back is killing me, my feet are all torn up from mowing the lawn (because I wore some goofy slip-on shoes), and my legs are all scratched up from adventures at the cabin. And yet, my plan for today is to run to work (about 6 miles), after yesterday's exercise extravaganza that included going to TRX class at the gym, doing 4 miles of speed work with a friend in the blazing late afternoon sun, and biking to and from work.

I agree: There's got to be another way. But I don't know what it is. When I let myself get still and quiet, I hurt in ways that make the physical maladies feel like welcome diversions. And that's no good.

This song is in my head after someone yesterday used the phrase running away to describe my love's decision to leave, and Social D has something to say about that:

Well I've searched and I've searched
To find the perfect life
A brand new car and a brand new suit
I even got me a little wife
But wherever I have gone
I was sure to find myself there
You can run all your life
But not go anywhere

I think they're absolutely right. But my adventurer isn't really susceptible to the all-too-common American "if I just have all the right things I'll be ok" and that's one of the qualities I really appreciated about him. It was a good balance for my tendency toward acquisitiveness, and when you feel as full as I felt when things were going right for us, it's easy to see that things don't really matter. But I guess I don't understand finding that kind of love and then choosing to be alone?

Before he left, we were listening to Slacker when this song came on, and I made some comment, no doubt from a place of insecurity stirred up by having someone you love dearly who dearly loves you decide to leave you, about him not having to worry about the ball and chain anymore:

Take away, take away
Take away this ball and chain
Well I'm sick and I'm tired
And I can't take any more pain
Take away, take away
Never to return again
Take away, take away
Take away
Take away this ball and chain

As soon as I said it, I knew it wasn't true. I knew I'd never been a ball and chain for him and I never would be, which is one of the reasons I accepted his departure in the first place. Later, I said something to him about Wisconsin being his ball and chain, not me, and he said "No. You're more like wings."

Which is super sweet, even if a not insignificant part of me wondered if I maybe did a little too good of a job on his wings, the same part that wanted to clip them so he couldn't fly away for another, oh, eight years or so when I'll be free to spread my wings and fly because my kids will have done the same.

But nah. That's not what you do when you love someone, remember? I thought it was Richard Bach, of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame, who said it, but it turns out it was someone named Jess Lair. Anyway, it's a version of this:

If you want something very, very badly, let it go free.  If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever.  If it doesn’t, it was never yours to begin with.

(Really? The real quote includes a dangling participle? That's a little disappointing, but so says Quote Investigator.)

Anyway, the trick is for me not to hope for that to happen. Last night before I fell asleep, I was listening to Pema Chodron (a Western Buddhist Nun) talk about abandoning hope as a path to freedom. She said hope is based on the feeling that things aren't ok as they are, and the trick is to accept every moment as full and complete and lacking nothing.

Which really makes me wonder... did the Buddha ever know the pleasure of waking up next to his love? Cause if he didn't, it'd sure be a lot easier, when one finds oneself in the wee hours without said lover, not to hope one day he'll come back...

Love Hurts

This is another song I heard on the trip home from the cabin -- the Nazareth version -- that's been floating in and out of my consciousness ever since:

Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds, and marks
Any heart, not tough
Or strong enough
To take a lot of pain
Take a lot of pain

I agree that sometimes love hurts, and right now is a prime example. I also know that it scars, wounds and marks. But I don't agree that this only happens with hearts that aren't tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain. In my experience, you've got to be pretty damn tough to allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to open your heart to being hurt by a lover -- a lot tougher than you have to be to either choose someone who is safe or to keep a lover at arm's length.

There is a part of me that is proud that I was able to do that this time around -- to let myself be more vulnerable than I've ever been, at least as an adult.

I also have to admit that there's a huge part of me saying: Yeah, and look where it got you:

Love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain

This is true, but then, the same is true for life. I remember my mom saying when I was a kid: "Into each life some rain must fall." I never knew where that came from, but I just googled it: It's Longfellow.

But eventually, the sun comes out again, whether with the same love but under fresh circumstances or with a new love. And yeah, the sun can also burn, and that can be painful. But this is the nature of life, and it's not our job to avoid pain, and it's certainly not our job, in the wake of being hurt in love, to stop believing in it:

Some fools think of happiness
Blissfulness, togetherness
Some fools fool themselves I guess
They're not foolin' me

I know it isn't true
I know it isn't true
Love is just a lie
Made to make you blue

Oh it's true alright. It's the truest force there is -- the one that makes all the others possible. Does it hurt sometimes? Hell yeah. But that doesn't make it any less worth doing.

Plus, every time you do it, you learn more about yourself, more about others, more about what you need and what you're able to give. That's the beauty of it, and I reckon that's the reason these lyrics are the most hopeful part of this song:

I'm young, I know
But even so
I know a thing or two
I learned, from you
I really learned a lot
Really learned a lot...

Love Will Find a Way

I woke up this morning having had a bad dream. In it, we were about to take a family picture, with my extended family, and one of my cousins or aunts (not sure who it was), refused to let me be in the picture. Not a good feeling.

I also woke up with this song in my head, thanks to my chiropractor's office. Not my fave, but I did think it was hilarious that this is what I heard as I was leaving after my adjustment yesterday:

Oh, but it's all right once you get past the pain

...and apropos of where I am in my life:

You'll learn to find your love again
So keep your heart open
'Cause love will find a way

Sometimes we all feel a need to change
Our love we have to rearrange
And move on to something new, yes you do
Your dreams feel like they're fallin' apart
You need to find a brand new start
But you're almost afraid to be true to yourself

I believe you on love finding a way, Pablo, but you're wrong about one thing: I'm not afraid to be true to myself. I know it's what's going to help get me past the pain, as well as what's going to help me find love again:

So now don't, don't be afraid of yourself
Just move on to something else
And let your love shine through again

Yes, 'cause it's all right once you get past the pain
You'll learn to find your love again
So keep your heart open
'Cause love will find a way

As my friend said to me yesterday, I may not be there now, but it's coming for me...

Lucky You

Over the last 24 hours, I've watched two movies about lovers trying reconcile their love and their lives -- something my love and I grappled with and, at least for now, seem to have failed to do.

One of the movies was Like Crazy, which I found on Netflix; the other was Before Midnight, the third movie in Richard Linklater's trilogy that began with Before Sunrise. Neither was a brilliant film by any stretch of the imagination, but each had poignant scenes.

One such scene in Before Midnight was of a group at a dinner table, each discussing how they'd met their love or something significant about their relationship. One woman's husband had recently died, and she talked about how much she missed sleeping in the crook of his arm, how safe she felt there.

Having just lost my favorite place to feel safe -- not to death, mind you, but I've lost it just the same -- I teared up and put my head on the shoulder of my movie buddy. This woman talked about the fact that no matter how significant we are to another person or how significant they are to us, we're all just merely passing through this life.

After the movie, my friend and I went to one of our favorite post-cinema ristorantes and ordered an adult beverage, toasting to passing through. Then we came back to my house to do some yard work, and my friend talked about what he felt I'd both recognized I had in my love and what I had offered to him. I appreciated his assessment and it felt true to me, but it seems not to have mattered, ultimately, and that's pretty discouraging.

None of the songs from either movie really stuck with me or expressed this feeling of having found a true love and failing to find a way to make your lives fit together, but this song, which I heard in the car on the drive home from the cabin, does so beautifully:

Every time you get a drink
And every time you go to asleep
All those dreams inside your head
Is there sunlight on your bed
And every time you're driving home
Way outside your safety zone
Wherever you will ever be
You're never getting rid of me

You own me
There's nothing you can do
You own me

You coulda made a safer bet
But what you break is what you get
You wake up in the bed you make
I think you made a big mistake

You own me
There's nothing you can do
You own me
You own me
Lucky you

You own me
There's nothing you can do

You clean yourself to meet
The man who isn't me
You're putting on a shirt
A shirt I'll never see
The letter's in your coat
But no one's in your head
Cause you're too smart to remember
You're too smart
Lucky you

Powerful, eh? And if you think the words alone are powerful -- listen to The National singing it. I have, about 14 times. It's just lovely.

Thank You

We've finally returned home from our week up north -- and off the grid -- so I've got some catching up to do.

I think I'll start here, with this song, which came to me just over a week ago today as I watched my daughter say goodbye to my lover for the past three years, who was also an adventure pal in her life for the last two.

"Goodbye," she began, and then: "thank you for coming." I thought it was heartbreakingly sweet that she said, without prompting, the same thing I'd said to him in the wake of his departure. Because as hard as it is to say goodbye, we're all glad we had the time together that we did.

I'm not sure all of these lyrics fit, but I've always liked the way LZ expresses gratitude:

If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.

Kind woman, I give you my all, Kind woman, nothing more.

Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by.
My love is strong, with you there is no wrong,
together we shall go until we die. My, my, my.
An inspiration is what you are to me, inspiration, look... see.

And so today, my world it smiles, your hand in mine, we walk the miles,
Thanks to you it will be done, for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad, happiness....I'm glad.
If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.

I'm not sure about a lot of things at the moment, lying in this big old bed by myself. But I have faith that I'm sure about everything I need to be sure about today, and that things will unfold and more will be revealed to me...